Starting out with an interest in following a therapeutic and spiritual path in my own life,  I was drawn to reading widely and doing various jobs and trainings to gain relevant experience and knowledge.  I worked in a project supporting long-term psychiatric patients to be re-housed in the community and as a Child and Family Social Worker.  

 

Wanting to go towards more specifically therapeutic work, I trained as a Relate Couple Counsellor.  Then, realising that mind and body are inseparable, I began to move towards a more holistic approach, doing body-related trainings in Craniosacral Therapy, Somatic Trauma Therapy and Whole Body Focusing.

 

Following a spiritual path and developing a meditation practice has been a foundation of my life for many years.  Buddhist teachings have been especially helpful and inspirational.  Not wanting to be defined by any one label, I don’t call myself ‘a Buddhist’ and have been influenced by other spiritual traditions, including the wisdom of indigenous cultures, Christianity, and Sufism.  I belong to a mindfulness meditation group, go on meditation retreats as often as I can and have a daily meditation practice.  

 

When I saw an opportunity to bring the therapy and spiritual strands of my life together by training as a Mindfulness Teacher at Bangor University, I knew this was what I needed to do. Mindfulness became and still is the ‘meta-approach’ that encompasses all of the elements of my work, trainings and life experience.  The essence of this is in cultivating a non-judgemental and compassionate relationship to everything that arises, moment by moment,  and which values every aspect of our experience, no matter how mundane or life-changing, pleasurable, painful or neutral.